Banner day for Little Rock, Ark., as city flies ‘no thanks’ message to Amazon over Seattle

The group Love, Little Rock flew a banner over Seattle directing people to a website with its letter to Amazon. (Twitter Photo / @jeremypbeasley)

The city of Little Rock, Ark., has plenty of love, but none for Amazon.

A group called Love, Little Rock flew a banner over Seattle on Monday letting the tech giant know that it wasn’t interested in being one of the 238 places that submitted a proposal to be home to the company’s second headquarters.

“Hey Amazon. It’s not you. It’s us,” read the message towed behind a small plane, visible in photographs on social media. A website URL on the banner offered more clues about what was up at lovelittlerock.org.

Visitors to that site found a letter and video spelling out why Little Rock went from being “all over it” when it came to interest in lobbying for HQ2, to realizing “it would probably never work out between us.”

The letter called Amazon “smart, sexy, and frankly, incredibly rich” but said that it would be a “bummer” to concentrate a workforce of 50,000 people in the capital city, with its population of around 200,000.

“Our lack of traffic and ease of getting around would be totally wrecked, and we can’t sacrifice that for you,” the letter said.

The stunt makes no mention of the fact that Arkansas is home to Walmart — Amazon’s big competition when it comes to controlling America’s retail landscape. The New York Times wrote last month about how the nation’s largest private employer is doubling down on the state, and rebuilding its headquarters there.

Here’s the video and full letter:

Hey Amazon. We need to talk.

It’s not you, it’s us.

We know, we know, when you originally sent out your offer for cities to send in proposals for your future HQ2, we were all over it.

After all, you’re Amazon. You’re smart, sexy, and frankly, incredibly rich. And thanks to ourbooming business environment, tech-savvy workforce, diverse, creative culture and flourishing downtown, there are a lot of reasons why we’d be great together.

But when we started really thinking about what our future would look like, we realized it would probably never work out between us.

You want 50,000 employees for your new campus. We have a sizable, resourceful workforce, but if we were to concentrate them here, it would be a bummer. Our lack of traffic and ease of getting around would be totally wrecked, and we can’t sacrifice that for you.

You want on-site mass transit at HQ2. Here, there are many transit options that fit our city perfectly, and thanks to our compact urban footprint, many of our residents can easily get to the office on foot, on a bike or just by a quick drive. It would be cool if we could offer that, but we simply can’t do that just to make you happy.

Amazon, you’ve got so much going for you, and you’ll find what you’re looking for. But it’s just not us.

We’re happy knowing that many great companies find our natural good looks, coupled with our brains for business, irresistible.

Writer and editor Kurt Schlosser covers the Geek Life beat for GeekWire. A longtime journalist, photographer and designer, he has worked previously for NBC News, msnbc.com and the Seattle P-I. Follow Kurt on Twitter or reach him at kurt@geekwire.com.

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